When a loved one starts a conversation with the words “You love me, right?” you know you have to prepare yourself for the worst.
That’s how my son started a phone conversation with me this evening. He had gotten his driver’s license a week ago and now he is terrorizing the sidewalks of Moncton. It snowed big time here a couple of days ago and you can imagine the stream of possible revelations heading my way when I heard those words on the other end of the phone.
“You love me, right?”
Yes, of course I do. Now please tell me what happened. Crunched fenders… insurance rates… expensive repairs… speeding tickets… broken glass… global warming… For GOD’S sake, PLEASE tell me what happened!
“Well, I, uhm… me and Brendan, like, uhm, we were going to Shopper’s to get some cold medicine, for Mom, and uhm, like, on our way, we, like, you know, dropped in for Devon, and well… we were driving back, and like, uhm, we were being really careful, but like we were on Mountain Road, right? and you know, we were just driving along and…”
Please just tell me what happened. Before I melt into a puddle and short circuit my cell phone. Please.
“Ok, well, uhm, anyways, we were driving along and, like, there was a piece of ice in the road, right?, and there was no way to drive around it, and like, I uhm, didn’t want to slam on the brakes for a chunk of ice, and I, uhm, didn’t really KNOW it was a chunk of ice, it like, you know, looked like snow, but anyways, we hit it and like it made a bad noise and we like kept driving around but the brake pedal started to like, you know, feel funny, and well, then a light came on, but it, uhm, you know, it wasn’t like, flashing or anything and so then we like drove around some more, until like, the car wouldn’t stop when we pressed the pedal, so we like pulled over and…”
Did you hit anything? Are you ok? Where’s the car?
“No, yes, in the driveway.”
Good. I’ll be home soon… we can talk about it some more then.
Oh me nerves.
